Archive for November, 2014

In a landmark case, parents with learning disabilities who were separated from their baby daughter for over a year whilst social workers dragged their feet have won £12,000 in damages after the local authority admitted violating their human rights.
Both parents were highly vulnerable, and medical professionals had no idea that the mother was pregnant before she gave birth. It was unclear whether she had concealed her pregnancy or was genuinely unaware that she was having a baby. However, social workers decided that the little girl – H – was ‘at risk of significant harm’ and the couple were prevented from taking her home from the hospital.
H was placed with a couple the mother knew and there she remained for month after month. All the while, the parents – who only had a ‘basic’ understanding of what was happening – were ...

The English family courts are accustomed to dealing with ‘big money’ divorces with a distinctly international flavour and, in one such, a ‘fabulous’ penthouse flat in one of London’s most exclusive areas – said to be worth £20 million – was at the centre of a bitter struggle between an 89-year-old Saudi Arabian sheikh and his Lebanese ex-wife.
The sheikh was ‘outraged’ when his ex-wife laid claim to the flat, near Regent’s Park. He had divorced her in an Islamic ‘talaq’ ceremony and hotly disputed her right to bring financial relief proceedings against him in London on the basis that the fall-out from the end of their marriage was a ‘deeply, deeply’ Saudi Arabian affair.
However, his 63-year-old former wife argued that she had now made her permanent home in London and needed somewhere to live. When her ex-husband, a hugely ...